A Boon For Environments With Limited Resources: Bacteria Powered Battery

A team of researchers working at the Binghamton University recently came up with a bacteria-powered battery that has been made using a single paper sheet that is capable of empowering disposable electronics. Assistant Professor of the university and one of the team members, Seokheun Choi, says, “Papertronics have recently emerged as a simple and low-cost way to power disposable point-of-care diagnostic sensors.” 

 

The battery has been made using a one-half piece of chromatography paper,  the team also placed a silver nitrate ribbon under a wax layer for creating a cathode. This duo then created a reservoir from a conductive polymer over the other half of this chromatography paper that then acted as an anode. The reaction was triggered through some drops of bacteria filled the liquid post which the paper was folded. The cellular respiration of these bacteria resulted in empowering of this battery. Choi says, “The final battery] demands manual assembly, and there are potential issues such as misalignment of paper layers and vertical discontinuity between layers, which decrease power generation.” 

 

 

As per the research team, a range of stacking and folding papers can easily lead to significant improvements in current and power outputs of devices. Scientists can always generate power worth 31-51 – 125.53µA using six batteries that are arranged in parallel series with a 6 x 6 configuration in 44.85µW and 105.89µW. The team claims that the innovation is a smaller one and for now it will take a million batteries to power up a bulb. However, it is a significant discovery and future improvements in this can lead to better applications.  The energy, for now, is enough to power biosensors and monitor glucose levels in sugar patients or detection of pathogens in a body and perform several other life-saving functions. Choi concludes, “Microorganisms can harvest electrical power from any type of biodegradable source, that is readily available, like wastewater. This type of paper bio battery could be a future power source for papertronics.”